2024/033: Medea — Rosie Hewlett

Atalanta once told me the world would make me the villain of this story, but she was wrong.
The world tried to make me the victim, so I became its villain. [loc. 4372]]

This is the second modern retelling of Medea's story that I've read in the last year (the first being Rani Selvarajah's Savage Beasts, which transplants the story to 17th-century India): I may avoid further novels based on this particular myth, because neither novel really came together for me. While all the key elements are present in Hewlett's novel, the pacing is uneven and the characters -- apart from Medea herself, and perhaps her aunt Circe -- one-dimensional.

Medea endures a horrific childhood after playfully transforming her brother Apsyrtus into a pig. Once returned to human form, he is cruel to her, as is their abusive father. Medea loves her sister Chalciope, but Chalciope is married off to a man who Medea had hopes of wedding. Then Jason and his crew show up, keen to commandeer the Golden Fleece: Medea helps Jason to accomplish the impossible tasks, leaves Colchis with the Argo and its crew, and dedicates her energies to Jason and his ambition. Jason, here, has little in the way of personality: just a stream of demeaning remarks, reframing Medea's actions and casting doubt on every aspect of her behaviour. Ugh.

Medea would have done well to listen to Circe's advice, which included not marrying Jason, and not turning to the dark 'death' magic unleashed by murder. Instead, she decided (like any teenager) that she knew best, and that Jason's ambition -- and her own desire to be in control of her life -- justified any atrocity. Her use of the dark magic, and her fight to stay in control of it, was at once the most original and the most unsettling aspect of the novel.

I found Medea unevenly paced, with sudden jumps of a year, ten years, five years. That final section came with an unexpected and perhaps unnecessary change of narrator, too, to Chalciope: but Chalciope's sympathy and pity are a good contrast to Medea's rageful hatred. The use of modern colloquialisms -- 'OK'; 'I'll take it from here'; 'that must've been tough to hear' -- jarred with me, too: I don't expect dry old-fashioned language but the dialogue felt false. Sadly, this novel just didn't work for me.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK publication date is 21st March 2024.

2024/032: Langue[dot]doc 1305 — Gillian Polack

I need a medievalist. Right away. [loc. 230]

An account of a, primarily Australian, research trip to medieval Languedoc, told mostly from the viewpoint of historian Artemisia Wormwood. Artemisia (who chose her own surname after divorcing her family, for reasons which are explained late in the novel) is out of work -- and in urgent need of funds -- when she's approached by an old friend who has a proposition for her. The project is a time-travel expedition: the team will spend nine months in 1305, establishing a base in a cave system near the little town of St-Guilhem-le-Desert in Languedoc. Their aim is to study meteorology, biodoversity, astronomy and climate change. They will, of course, stay concealed and not affect the lives of the locals. 'History will be fine,' team leader Luke reassures Artemisia. But Artemisia, who understands that 'it's about how people describe their realities', is not convinced.

It turns out that none of the team (except Artemisia) can communicate with the locals; that none of them (except Artemisia) understand the culture of the time into which they've been deposited; that none of them (except Artemisia) are especially concerned about interacting with the people of St-Guilhem-le-Desert. She is regarded as an irritation by the others, described as 'support staff' and not allowed to participate in planning sessions. But it's Artemisia who has to intercede with the locals when another member of the team, the dislikeable Sylvia, steals a valuable book. In the process, she becomes friendly with a local knight, Guilhem -- though he is not sanguine about 'the people who live under the hill', and he is not wholly honest with Artemisia.

Langue[dot]doc 1305 is often hilarious, but quietly so. Artemisia's conflicts with her colleagues (especially Sylvia, and team-leader Luke, whose area of expertise seems to be drawing things on whiteboards) are horribly recognisable to anyone who has worked in academia, or in a dysfunctional team. Luckily they're not all awful, and Artemisia is pretty self-sufficient. I laughed at the Connie Willis jokes, and shared Artemisia's appalled amusement at Sylvia's behaviour. Which is not to say that the novel is light-hearted and cheerful: some pretty grim things happen towards the end of the story, and it becomes clear (at least to anyone with a working knowledge of medieval history) that ... well, that things have changed. 

I enjoyed this a lot. I like Polack's prose, and the Australian inflections, and her wry ironic humour. And I note that I've also greatly enjoyed The Time of the Ghosts and The Year of the Fruitcake. I should certainly read more of her work...

Fulfils the ‘title starting with the letter 'L'’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge.

Fulfils the ‘A Book With A Number(s) In The Title’ rubric of the Something Bookish Reading Challenge.

2024/031: Klara and the Sun — Kazuo Ishiguro

Our generation still carry the old feelings. A part of us refuses to let go. The part that wants to keep believing there’s something unreachable inside each of us. Something that’s unique and won’t transfer. But there’s nothing like that, we know that now. [p. 277]

Klara is an AF, an Artificial Friend. We first meet her in the shop, waiting to be bought. While she's part of a window display she witnesses a Beggar Man and his dog apparently dying and then being resurrected by the Sun: also, a vile machine that pumps out Pollution. (The capitals are Klara's.)

Eventually Klara is purchased and goes home with her new family: Josie, who is suffering side-effects of a genetic uplift programme, and her Mother. Josie is often ill, but she has a friend, Rick, who lives nearby. Rick is not uplifted and this limits his options in life. Klara strikes up a sort of friendship with him, as she learns more about Josie, and the Mother, and Josie's dead sister Sal. She realises that she will have to intercede to have Josie made well: that a sacrifice is needed.

Klara and the Sun is sometimes rather sentimental, but that's because Klara was designed to be sentimental. She doesn't understand much about the world, and she misinterprets or simply doesn't rationalise some of what she sees. She is devoted to Josie, even when she understands what her own role might be. And though one character refers to 'AF superstition', I think that Klara has developed something like religion: I'm certain that aspect of her story wasn't in the original specification. The novel's ending is bittersweet and brought tears to my eyes, but Klara at least seems happy.

The worldbuilding is very lightly sketched, mostly because Klara isn't interested: but there are elements that feel familiar (such as bereavement dolls) and themes that resonate: jobs vanishing because of AI, increasing social divisions between the wealthy and the poor, communities defending themselves 'when the time comes', nepotism ...

With hindsight, this reminded me of Never Let Me Go, which I feel also dealt with a non-human protagonist and the questions of whether she was a person, whether she possessed a soul. And I think there's a theme there too, of people seeing things they perhaps shouldn't see, and drawing erroneous conclusions from them -- something that children, of course, do all the time.

Fulfils the ‘title begins with K’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge.

2024/030: Old Man's War — John Scalzi

The reason we use force when we deal with other intelligent alien species is that force is the easiest thing to use. It’s fast, it’s straightforward, and compared to the complexities of diplomacy, it’s simple. [p. 166]

Widower John Perry celebrates his 75th birthday by saying goodbye to Earth, his life and everything he's ever known. He enlists with the Colonial Defense Forces, who have technology which is rumoured to 'reverse ageing'. The downside is that, should you survive your two years' tour of duty (which may be extended to ten years), you can't ever return to Earth: instead, you will be given a new life in the colonies. Perry is fine with all that. He's still mourning his wife Kathy, and there's nothing left for him on Earth except old age and death.

Turns out the 'anti-ageing' is a brand-new body (the 'full body transplant' of which I have been dreaming lately), a BrainPal AI assistant (which Perry names Asshole), and plenty of weapons training; a bunch of new friends; and the opportunity to visit exotic new worlds and kill whatever's already living there. For this is not a friendly universe. Humanity is (as usual) in a race to expand, to colonise, to boldly go et cetera. So are all the other intelligent species out there, and apparently (a) there are a lot of them and (b) they all want Earth-like planets too. (Why yes, Scalzi does acknowledge a debt to Heinlein in his afterword.) Much of the book is a montage of battle scenes, as Perry becomes initially blasé and then increasingly uncomfortable about his job. He maintains friendships with the people he trained with, a diminishing pool as one by one they're killed off; he discovers the Ghost Brigades, and some highly dubious ethical practises; and he kills things people.*

I enjoyed this much more than I'd expected to: I am not a fan of military SF, and I'm more or less a pacifist. Scalzi's take on the Huge Intergalactic Melee has room for conscience and grief as well as slaughter, though I think he also made an effort to include a variety of shocking scenarios. I did have two issues. One is that the Colonial Defense Forces seem to be wholly American (we don't encounter anyone who isn't from the US); one is that a person 'grown' from the DNA of someone else seems to acquire their emotional connections, which is horribly close to Destined Soulmates.

When I finished this book (which I've owned for nearly 10 years) I doubted I'd read more in the series: but actually I'm intrigued...

Fulfils the ‘apostrophe in the title’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge.

*"The people! The things!"
"The things," said Ford quietly, "are also people."

2024/029: Disturbance — Jenna Clake

There was not a box in which to write: I have been casting spells with my teenage neighbour and I think I might be losing control. [loc. 1639]

The nameless narrator of Disturbance is in her mid-twenties. She has moved to a small town to escape her abusive ex. She's still frightened that he will track her down, or that he's dead and haunting her. It does seem that there is a presence sharing her small flat: lights flicker, doors open and close, she feels as though she is not alone. One hot night, she watches from her window as her teenaged neighbour Chelsea enacts some kind of magical ritual, perhaps connected with Joseph, whose treatment of Chelsea troubles our narrator. 'I knew from experience that the accusations could only worsen, and then something terrible would happen.'

She becomes friends with Chelsea, and with Chelsea's friend Jess: she attempts magic to rid herself of the weight of that abusive relationship, and perhaps to remove any remaining influence of her ex. But she's still not sure that magic is possible -- and she begins to wonder if Jess really has Chelsea's best interests at heart.

This is an aptly-titled novel: it gave me nightmares, and made me think about some of my own long-ago relationships in a different light. I'm not sure the narrator is altogether sane, and I'm not sure whether the things that she experiences are 'real' in any objective sense. But her voice is powerful, and the story of three 'witches' is unsettling, though it never tips fully towards the supernatural. I think I'll read more by this author: I found her style compelling.

Fulfils the ‘published by Hachette’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge.

Fulfils the ‘A novel with an unreliable narrator’ rubric of the Something Bookish Reading Challenge.

2024/028: Almost Surely Dead — Amina Akhtar

She’d say [a prayer] and then clap three times and blow air on me. Phook marring, it was called. She said it would keep all the scary things away when I was little. But it didn’t. She was the scary thing in my life, and the prayer never kept her away. [loc. 1315]

Dunia Ahmed is the subject of a 'true crime' podcast series: she's been missing for over a year, after several very public attempts on her life. It's unclear why anyone would want to hurt her: she was a young woman of Pakistani heritage, a pharmacist in New York City, unmarried (and dealing with a broken engagement); she had a few good friends, though was estranged from her sister; her mother had recently died.

The story is told in many different voices, including 'Dunia at 5' and Dunia just before her disappearance, as well as the various guests on the (appallingly ghoulish) podcast. From quite early in the book it's apparent that Dunia had a difficult childhood. Her mother blamed Dunia for a number of unpleasant events, including her father's death, and Dunia was accused of making up stories about friends that nobody else could see.

The gradual revelation of what happened to Dunia is intriguing, but I wasn't as impressed with the way it was told. The awfulness of the podcast hosts was hammered home, and a lot of the dialogue and stream-of-consciousness was clunky and repetitive. The last third of the novel felt substantially different in tone, and made it into more of a mundane thriller. I did like Dunia's father's jinn stories, though, even though Dunia's mother hated them. With good reason.

Fulfils the ‘a sticker on the cover’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge.

2024/027: The Hunter — Tana French

Her dad and Rushborough are the only weapons she has, or is ever likely to get, against this townland. They're locked and loaded, ready to her hand. She didn't go looking for them; something laid them in front of her ... [loc. 2389]

Second in the Cal Hooper series, this is set about two years after The Searcher. It's a long hot summer, drought laying waste to the Irish countryside. Cal is now in a relationship with Lena, though she refuses to let him make her responsible for his moods. Trey is still mourning her lost brother Brendan -- and still determined to avenge him, regardless of not knowing who caused his death. She wanders the mountain looking for Brendan's unmarked grave. Then Trey's father Johnny returns unexpectedly from England, with a fellow in tow who claims Irish blood and may even be related to some of the folk of Ardnakelty. And this fellow, Rushborough, believes that there's gold in the mountains...

The Hunter is told from several different viewpoints, of whom I think I liked Trey the best. Cal has more or less been accepted by his neighbours, but he's still struggling to negotiate the unspoken rules and unbreakable laws of the place. "Lack of clarity is this place's go-to, a kind of allpurpose multitool comprising both offensive and defensive weapons as well as broad-spectrum precautionary measures." [loc. 4334]. Neither Trey nor Cal has much reason to welcome Johnny, even before it becomes clear that Johnny is not being wholly honest about the reasons for his return.

I liked this more than The Searcher (though still not as much as the Dublin murder mysteries) especially as there's an underlying note of mystery, of the inexplicable. The emotions, the motivations, the everyday conflicts and the underlying bonds of Ardnakelty are splendidly portrayed, and there's a strong sense of a community layered with epic tales, no matter how small the canvas. This book should be read by anyone contemplating relocation to a quiet rural village. It's made me wonder how much I never understood about the place where I grew up...

Fulfils the ‘a revenge story’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK publication date is 7th March 2024.

2024/026: Half a Soul — Olivia Atwater

“You are standing in a viscount’s back garden in your unmentionables, washing your dress in a fountain. Have you truly no concept of the strangeness of your situation?” Dora paused, looking down at her dress where it soaked beneath her hands. Oh, she thought. He’s probably correct. [loc. 709]

Ah, publishers, so keen to pull in an audience: 'Bridgerton meets Howl's Moving Castle!' I am not at all convinced by the latter comparison, except that there is a dashing and rather rude magician (the Lord Sorcier, also known as Lord Elias Wilder) and a hapless young woman (Dora, half of whose soul has been stolen by the faerie Lord Hollowvale). Dora has a pleasant low-pitched existence, without any disturbing emotions: she's fond of her cousin Vanessa, who stabbed Lord Hollowvale with a pair of embroidery scissors before he could steal all of Dora's soul. She is less fond of Vanessa's mama, Auntie Frances, who regards Dora as a kind of doll and heartily disapproves of her unconventional behaviour.

In London for the season, Dora meets war veteran Albert and becomes involved with his mission to improve workhouse conditions -- a subject also close to Elias Wilder's heart, since he is investigating a 'sleeping plague' amongst workhouse children. He takes an interest in Dora's case...

I enjoyed this very much: it's lighthearted and amusing, while not pretending that everything is delightful in Regency London. Dora's behaviour could be read as neurodivergent, and Elias has some ... issues of his own. There are plenty of anachronisms ('auntie' would not, I think, be used in upper-class society; 'brunch' wasn't coined until the 1890s; 'dinner and a show' jarred) but they don't spoil the story. I found Atwater's prose light and charming, very readable.

I'd had this in my TBR for over a year. What other joys lurk there?

Fulfils the ‘title matches song lyrics’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge - Amanda Caesa's song Half a Soul matches on title, though not on mood / subject.

Fulfils the ‘a book with green in its cover design’ rubric of the Something Bookish Reading Challenge.

2024/025: The Mad Emperor: Heliogabalus and the Decadence of Rome — Harry Sidebottom

The entire thing was invented by the author of the 'Augustan History', who gives the game away, probably intentionally, when he writes that the tale was spread by men who were marginalised at court because of their small penises (don’t worry, we will come back to the importance of cock size in politics). [loc. 2403]

The emperor known as Heliogabalus -- perhaps best known from Alma-Tadema's The Roses of Heliogabalus, depicting the Emperor watching with lazy amusement as his dinner guests are smothered in petals -- was a Syrian teenager, propelled to Rome and the purple by his grandmother. He'd been a priest of a local sun god, Elegabal, for some years, and brought his god (in the form of a black stone) to Rome, where Elegabal displaced Jupiter and was worshipped, under duress, by respectable Romans. Heliogabalus married several women, including the Vestal Virgin Aquilia Severa (indeed, he married her twice); he also made no secret of his desire for well-endowed men, several of whom he appointed to various powerful positions. After less than four years, the Praetorian Guard murdered Heliogabalus and his mother: their bodies were desecrated and thrown into the Tiber.

Harry Sidebottom has managed to write a boring book about Heliogabalus. To be fair, there is very little reliable evidence for his reign. The 'Augustan History', which makes much of his depravity, is pretty much a work of fiction; Cassius Dio is more credible but was writing of the recent past, and employed by the new regime. Sidebottom spends more time on the context of Heliogabalus' rise to power -- civil wars, the political situation, the role of the Emperor -- than on Heliogabalus himself. He's also keen to argue with other writers and historians, ancient and modern: he's not at all impressed by 'modern scholars' (a phrase which occurs 26 times in the book) though he names no names. ('the idea can be dismissed straight away ... it is a mystery why some modern scholars have supported the idea ... knowing better than the ancients ... orientalism ... despite much bad modern history ...)

I found Sidebottom's analysis of Alma-Tadema's painting fascinating. I didn't take to his rather staccato prose style ('Sex in ancient Rome was one big orgy, where you could do anything with anyone. So modern popular culture likes to imagine. Absolutely not, says an eminent French scholar. Pas du tout.'). And I would have liked more footnotes. Fascinating subject, but given the dearth of reliable historical evidence I actually think I'd prefer to read a novel about Heliogabalus, rather than an account like this.

I am, disappointingly, unable to fit this to any rubric of the Annual Non-Fiction Reading Challenge.

2024/024: Black Dove, White Raven — Elizabeth Wein

...'one of them told me that if you were born to a slave before 1916 then you are automatically a slave too. They are still a lot of old laws in place.’
‘Good thing you were born in 1919,’ I said.
He turned to look at me and he was crying. ‘1916 is the Ethiopian date,’ he said. ‘You know how the Ethiopian calendar is a little over seven years behind?' [p. 182]

Elizabeth Wein's World War 2 novels (Code Name Verity, Rose Under Fire) have really impressed me, and have stayed fresh in my mind for a decade or more. I suspect they may be intended for a younger audience, but that doesn't mean that Wein softens anything. In Black Dove, White Raven she deals with the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935; with slavery; with racism and sexism; and with wartime atrocities.

Her narrators are Emilia ('Em') and Teo, who've grown up together. Their mothers were stuntflyers after the First World War. Em's mother Rhoda was the White Raven, and Teo's mother Delia was the Black Dove. (The novel begins with Em recalling the problems they had performing south of the Mason-Dixon line, and the prejudice against Delia and Teo.) Then Delia died, and -- after going into a decline -- Rhoda decided to move to Ethiopia, the last free Black nation in Africa. Only gradually do we get an idea of the children's fathers. Em's father, Orsino Menotti, is a pilot in the Italian air force; Teo's father Gedeyon Wendimu, who died of influenza in 1919, was an Ethiopian pilot. Em gets to spend some time with her father in Ethiopia, while Teo discovers some unhappy truths about his own father. But it's Teo who is entrusted with a secret, and vital, mission...

Em and Teo are very close, and they've spent much of their childhood creating stories together -- stories of Black Dove (who can become invisible, even more so than Teo when he's trying not to be noticed) and White Raven (who is heroic and dashing and taught herself to fly). Part of the novel is told through their increasingly sophisticated collaborations, part through letters and school essays. And part, of course, by the reader reading between the lines, seeing that racism and misogyny are present in Ethiopia as well as America, albeit in very different ways.

I loved the descriptions of flying (even when Em hated it); the dry wit of Teo; the sense of Ethiopia as a country, and the Ethiopians as a people with a long heritage of Christianity and a vivid history. I'm intrigued by the relationships between Rhoda and Delia, and between Rhoda and her husband Captain Menotti. And Wein, as she has before, brought tears to my eyes. Now of course I want to read more of her work...

Fulfils the ‘set in. landlocked country’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge.

2024/023: Terec and the Wild — Victoria Goddard

Terec could not see the magic, but he could feel it: heavy, weighted nets intended to catch every stray bit of magic and weave it into the beautiful totality that was called, in glorious simplicity, the Pax Astandalatis [loc. 42]

A short novella set in Goddard's Nine Worlds series, Terec and the Wild portrays the turning point in the life of Terec, who's a very minor character (though dear to a major character) in the central duology, The Hands of the Emperor and At The Feet of the Sun. Terec didn't ask to be gifted with power he's unable to control -- he typically wakes with his sheets singed, if not actually on fire -- or to shame his family by being a wild mage, feeling the magic of Astandalas and the Emperor as a yoke rather than a boon. He's determined to head north and leave the Empire, even though that means leaving behind his family and his beloved. Despite misjudgements, inclement weather and insufficient funds, he finds himself at the northern border, and witnesses the Wild calling to him.

Far, far too brief: allegedly the first in a trilogy (which together might make up a shortish novel), but the second part was due in 2022 and there's no sign of it yet. I did enjoy the story, but it feels very much like the first scene of a longer work.

Fulfils the ‘related to the word 'wild'’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge. I will probably also read a novel for this prompt, but just in case ...

2024/022: Fortune Favours the Dead — Stephen Spotswood

This city’s full of monsters, thieves, and assholes. And that’s just City Hall.” [loc. 3789]

First in a series of murder mysteries set in 1940s New York. Willowjean ('Will') Parker ran away to the circus as a teenager, and has accumulated a host of useful skills including lock-picking, highwire-walking and knife-throwing. The latter of these brings her to the attention of Ms Lillian Pentecost, 'the most famous woman detective in the city and possibly the country'. Ms P, as Will calls her, suffers from multiple sclerosis, and would like an assistant to aid in situations where her 'physical limitations' prove inconvenient. Will would like a roof over her head, worthwhile employment, and considerable freedom to live as she chooses.

Fortune Favours the Dead is an account of a classic locked-room murder. Socialite Abigail Collins was murdered at a Halloween party she was hosting: the murder weapon was a crystal ball, and Abigail was alone in the room after a seance in which fashionable spiritualist Ariel Belestrade apparently channelled the spirit of Abigail's husband, who'd committed suicide a year before. While investigating the crime, Will (who's bisexual) strikes up a relationship with the daughter of the murdered woman. Ms P is more interested in Ariel Belestrade, and how she works her con...

I like the way Will and Ms P complement one another: they're a detective duo comparable with Holmes and Watson, Wolfe and Archie, et cetera. And I like the way the novel handles queerness (Will's and Becca's, as well as a couple of other characters. ('Ms. Pentecost had never shown a romantic interest in anyone, man or woman.') There were a couple of ... not quite anachronisms, but details that I think people in 1945 would have reacted to with more surprise: Ms P's 'Ms', which indeed was in parlance, though it didn't come into general use until the 1970s; and a woman not drinking champagne at the party, thus revealing to Belestrade that she's pregnant). I don't think alcohol avoidance in pregnancy was common practice: see A Brief History of Awareness of the Link Between Alcohol and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder.

But overall, great fun, and I liked the two protagonists very much: Will's pulp-inflected narration and Ms P's composure and dignity contrast very nicely. I'll probably read more in this series.

Fulfils the ‘locked room mystery’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge.

2024/021: The Conductor — Sarah Quigley

The rehearsal room stretched to accommodate the music, and the music filled the whole city, and the empty fields and desolate woods beyond. It rained down on Russian and German soldiers crouched in their trenches, stripping them of both fear and purpose — and then, surely, everything would be all right again... [loc. 3948]

Another novel about the Siege of Leningrad, to follow The Lost Pianos of Siberia (not a novel, but sparked my interest in the Siege with a handful of unsettling references) and The Siege, Helen Dunmore's critically-acclaimed novel about ordinary folk and how they survived the 900-day Siege, during which over a million people died of starvation or hypothermia. The Conductor may be mistitled: it felt to me as though the central character was Shostakovich, writing his Seventh Symphony during wartime, trying to evoke the spirit of Leningrad. But I could equally argue that Karl Eliasberg, the conductor of the Leningrad Radio Orchestra, is the man who makes possible the Leningrad premiere of the Seventh Symphony. Quigley at one point has Shostakovich, feeling affinity with Eliasberg's 'inner severity', say "I need the conductor. He's the listener I need."

Quigley focuses on three key figures: Shostakovich (driven, passionate, extremely disparaging about other composers); Eliasberg (moody, shy, lives with his mother); and violinist Nikolai Nikolayev (widower, devoted to his daughter). Of the three, I think I liked Shostakovich most -- I expect quite a few of his caustic comments come from published material -- but yes, it's Eliasberg who changes most over the course of the novel. He pulls together what's left of his 'second-rate' orchestra (the Philharmonia has been evacuated); doggedly pesters the Party for better rations and the conscriptions of anyone capable of playing an instrument; is the first person to hear, in a private session with Shostakovich, the Seventh Symphony. ('The music had marched into his body and strengthened him, fortifying his resolve.') All while struggling to keep himself and his elderly mother alive.

The novel ends just as Eisenberg's baton comes down to begin that momentous performance. We don't see people's reactions, or the aftermath of the Siege, or how Eisenberg's life changed -- not entirely for the better -- after the war. But Quigley gives us an emotional, credible, sometimes dramatic insight into the men who brought about the Leningrad premiere of what became known as the Leningrad Symphony.

I bought this novel in 2012, since when it's languished in the TBR: a great example of how there's a right time to read a book.

I also listened to Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony on repeat while I read: sadly, I still don't really like his music. But I love how much it mattered.

2024/020: What The River Knows — Isabel Ibañez

“Magic has been slowly disappearing everywhere,” Mr. Hayes said. “And here in Egypt, the remnants of magical energy manifested in curious weather patterns—famines, desert storms, and so on—but we have also found that some items, pot shards and the odd sandal, also have the hallmarks of old-world magic. [p. 71]

Inez Olivera, a young woman of good family living in 1880s Buenos Aires, is nineteen when she receives a letter from her uncle, telling her that her parents -- who've spent half of every year in Egypt, doing archaeology -- are missing, presumed dead. Inez is distraught, and sets off immediately for Alexandria, leaving only a note for her upright aunt and beloved cousin. There, she finds that her uncle really doesn't want her around: he's sent his 'assistant', a handsome rogue known as Whit, to put her on the next ship back to Argentina. Inez confounds her uncle's plans, not once but several times. She's determined to discover what happened to her parents -- and why her father sent her an antique gold ring that seems to be imbued with magic, rather than entrusting it to her uncle or to a museum. But it turns out that Inez didn't know her parents as well as she thought...

This was such a promising premise, and the sample chapters hooked me: Inez is very much a modern heroine, with a backbone of steel and definite Ideas. But the novel flounders and becomes repetitive, and one can't help feeling that Inez' Tío Ricardo has a point when he repeatedly tries to send her away. Inez ignores vital letters; behaves inappropriately in public; sneaks around after dark on her own; and keeps secrets that are vital to her uncle's work. (In her defense, she believes -- on fairly flimsy evidence -- that he's a murderer...)

There is a strong thread of romance between Inez and Whit, though he too seems to find our heroine aggravating. But, given the promise of the premise -- the ancient magic and the ways in which it manifests in Egypt -- there is surprisingly little of the fantastic here. Inez does occasionally mention her visions of a woman she assumes to be Cleopatra, and magic comes in handy when Tío Ricardo and his allies are trying to locate her tomb: but this magic seems vague and incoherent, and doesn't abide by any rules. There are some irritating typos and inconsistencies: 'here, here'; 'shown' instead of 'shone'; 'I hardly doubt it' rather than 'I doubt it' or 'I hardly think so' . And there is a shocking incident, quite out of key with the rest of the book, very near the novel's end -- followed by a tantalising cliffhanger. I'll probably read the second part of the duology when it comes out, but I shall lower my expectations.

Fulfils the ‘Hybrid Genre’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge. Fantasy and romance and history...

2024/019: The Siege — Helen Dunmore

Words are regaining their meanings, after years of masquerade. Hunger means hunger, terror means terror, enemy means enemy. It’s not like trying to read mirror-writing any more. Everything gets clearer day by day, as siege and winter eat into their lives. The coils of Soviet life are losing their strength. There’s only the present left, and it has burned away both past and future. There’s only the dark, besieged, freezing city, and the Germans outside, dug into their winter positions, waiting, stamping their feet. [loc. 3000]

Reading The Lost Pianos of Siberia awakened my interest in the Siege of Leningrad. Luckily my Kindle contained Helen Dunmore's well-regarded novel, The Siege.

Anna is a nursery assistant who lives in Leningrad with her little brother Kolya and her father Mikhail, a writer who's fallen out of favour with the authorities. When the German army invades in the summer of 1941, they think it will all be over soon. It isn't. The winter is brutally cold and people starve to death in the streets. Mikhail's old friend Marina has joined them in the apartment, as has Andrei, a doctor who treated Mikhail when he was injured by shrapnel. The narrative is mostly focussed on Anna as she searches for food and firewood, and determines the limits of what she will and won't do to get her family through the winter: there are passages from Mikhail's diary, and from the viewpoint of Andrei.

Dunmore's writing is sharp and precise, without sentimentality. She describes how a single square of bread can become the focus of a day; how shelled buildings are ransacked for anything that can be burnt; how the dead sit upright in the park, covered in snow; how, even in those times, a neighbour or acquaintance might denounce you for being critical of the Party. It's tremendously evocative, and portrays the characters' experiences vividly and in a way that feels honest and true. I was especially struck by Kolya, who's only five or six, and the way he constructs questions out of his fear. Are we going to die? he asks. 'No, says Andrei. ‘It’s only that I wasn’t sure, so I wanted to know,’ [Kolya] explains.'

I could say that nothing happens in this novel, or that these people are nothing special. In a sense that's true: it's a story of ordinary people in an extraordinary time. Rather, I shall say that what happens, happens beneath the surface: emotional connections made and broken, peacetime worries fading, stories told and retold, a strong pure emphasis on the business of survival.

Fulfils the ‘Part of a duology’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge. (The second part of the duology, The Betrayal, is set some years later. I shall read it soon.)

2024/018: The Lost Pianos of Siberia — Sophy Roberts

Confronting memory and repression, I knew that however hard I wanted my piano hunt to celebrate all that is magnificent about Siberia, much of what I was looking for was tied up with a terrifying past. I needed to heed the warning I was given by a brave Russian journalist early on: you have to know why you’re ignoring things you don’t want to hear, what should be remembered, and why people fall silent and try to forget. [loc. 3130]

Sophy Roberts is a travel journalist, who accepted a challenge to find her friend -- Mongolian pianist Odgerel Sampilnorov -- one of the 'lost pianos' of Siberia, a piano that might better withstand the harsh climate of the Mongolian steppe than the modern instrument Odgerel is playing. Roberts explores the importance of piano music in Russian culture, the fashion for European music, and the ways in which pianos (both European- and Russian-built) migrated east with settlers, exiles and artists. Along the way she covers the history of Russia, and especially of Siberia, through the places she visits and the people she meets.

The book is divided into three sections: 'Pianomania: 1762-1917' (culminating in the horror of the Romanovs' execution); 'Broken Chords: 1917-1991' (gulags, Decembrists, Stalin); and 'Goodness Knows Where: 1992-present' (Siberia's far east; competitive birdwatching). Roberts talks to musicians, teachers, tuners, and a retired Aeroflot engineer who's building a concert hall. She encounters a Siberian tiger, and travels by car, train, bus, sleigh and boat. ('I mostly travelled Siberia in winter, not summer. The main reason for this was a dangerous allergic response to the region’s mosquitoes – as vicious as the Siberian legend suggests, that they were born from the ashes of a cannibal.') En route, she recounts the experiences of earlier travellers, and traces the histories of the pianos she does find:

Given the Bechstein’s date, which was before a railway looped south beneath the lake, the piano may have taken a number of different routes. It could have travelled the rutted road running along the craggy south coast. It could also have crossed the lake by boat in summer, or by sledge in winter, or travelled on the Baikal, a British-built icebreaker. The ship, made of parts transported to Russia in pieces, sometimes took up to a week to make the winter crossing – from port to port, less than fifty miles – carrying twenty-five Trans-Siberian Railway cars on her specially designed deck. [loc. 1615]

I was fascinated by the depictions of pre-1917 Siberia, far from the cultural centres of Moscow and St Petersburg and yet with a vivid cultural life of its own. The vast expanses of landscape traversed by Roberts made me feel claustrophobic in my small city life. And my interest in Russian history reignited: this book inspired me to read about the horrific Siege of Leningrad.

I regret two things about reading this book: firstly, that I let it languish unread for so long (purchased August 2021); and secondly, that it has reignited my fascination with Russia at a time when travel to that country (which would profit a monstrous regime) is especially ill-advised.

The book has a website which is a thing of beauty, with video clips and photos, and music played by Odgerel Sampilnorov.

Fulfils the ‘frozen’ rubric of the Annual Non-Fiction Reading Challenge.

2024/017: Gogmagog: The First Chronicle of Ludwich — Jeff Noon and Steve Beard

A spell was underway. From the dank soil, from the memories of the witches of Dark Eden, from the gardener priests of the Wodwo clan as they huddled round their campfires in the days of snow and iron. From the flow of sap, from the river's tides. From the Deep Root. Aye, and from the dreams of the Old Ones, as they fell to earth in Year of First Arrival. [loc. 676]

Jeff Noon published the four books in the Vurt series, beginning with Vurt, in the 1990s: since then he's had a lower profile, working on interactive fiction and a series of SF-inflected pulp noir mystery novels. His latest work is coauthored with Steve Beard, with whom he's also worked on the writing game, and later novel, Mappalujo.

Cady Meade is a veteran river captain, full of tales about her years on the river Nysis, travelling up to the city of Ludwich and back down to the estuary. Now she's down on her luck, drinking too much, wandering the marshes, complaining about the youth of today. But perhaps her luck's about to change: two strangers come to her seeking transport, by river, to Ludwich. One is a young girl, and one is an artificial person, a Thrawl. No chance, Cady tells them. The river is more perilous than ever, it drives travellers mad, and it's actually the ghost of a great dragon.

So off they go to Ludwich, with Cady's young protege Yanish captaining the vessel.

This is not our world. It has echoes of post-war Britain, but it's also a land inhabited by various inhuman tribes -- the Wodwo 'of flower and flesh both made', the Azeel whose shadows wander -- and a land that was inhabited by monstrous Beasts before the Kindred came in their sky chariots. The Beasts, of course, were promptly slain: it's the ghost of the greatest, the dragon Haakenur, which haunts (or is) the river. But there might be another ghost, another danger...

Gogmagog is full of rich strange detail, and the world-building is fascinating even where indistinct. Yet I didn't really connect with the novel. Cady is a vivid but not wholly likeable character (though I did find myself warming to her over the course of the tale) and is often referred to as 'the old lady' -- not by other characters but by the authorial voice. Ugh! While 'old' is absolutely correct, and not the half of it, that phrase has too much cultural weight. ('Old woman' would be equally accurate and quite different in tone.) I was also not thrilled to discover that the final pages of Gogmagog introduce a major shift. I know it's the first part of a duology, but this felt as though it just stopped rather than concluding any of its subplots.

Fulfils the ‘Published in 2024’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge.

Fulfils the ‘A Book with a Protagonist Older than 50’ rubric of the Something Bookish Reading Challenge.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK publication date is 13th February 2024.